1. He actually ought to sue himself over his own involvement in the cover-up:
“Specter looks to revive 9/11 suits against Saudis
Critics, including Specter, insist that the Obama administration intervened in May with an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court not to take the case because Saudi Arabia is the nation’s most important Arab ally and the litigation had become an irritant in U.S.-Saudi relations.
They contend that the filing was timed to coincide with President Obama’s visit to Riyadh, an allegation denied by U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, who prepared the brief.
“She wants to coddle the Saudis,” Specter said of Kagan.”
http://www.911blogger.com/node/22251
2. “The Lap Bomber Mystery
We are asked to believe that a highly privileged young man, with everything to live for, was suddenly seized with a desire to commit suicide as an act of jihad: that he disappeared from his life of ease, on a street lined with Mercedes Benzes and Ferraris, in a fashionable district of London, and traveled to Yemen, where he received what may have been a defective bomb, which was sewn into his underwear by his jihadist trainers. This bomb then went undetected in Amsterdam airport, where the security arrangements are said to be tight (and a personal interview is conducted), and where he was let on a plane headed for the US in spite of explicit warnings given by his own father.
I’m not buying it, and, furthermore, in the context of Haskell’s testimony, another narrative seems just as likely: that this was a staged incident, a false flag operation, launched by those who have everything to gain by ramping up the atmosphere of hysteria and fear that regularly precedes America’s wars. This – admittedly speculative – scenario, of which I am equally skeptical, is buttressed, however, by the testimony of Jasper Schuringa – the passenger who leapt out of his seat on the other side of the plane, put out the fire, and secured Umar is a headlock – who says of the alleged terrorist:
“He was shaking. He didn’t resist anything. It’s just hard to believe that he was trying to blow up this plane. He was in a trance. He was very afraid.”
He didn’t resist? This hardly seems like the behavior one might expect of some fanatic jihadist bent on destruction and meeting those virgins in the afterlife.
…
Whether Nigerian, or Indian, something is up here, and it seems to have little to do with al-Qaeda, which – breaking its past habit of promptly taking “credit” – has yet to claim responsibility for the attempted attack. More grounds for suspicion: allegations that the Detroit incident was planned and carried out by al-Qaeda in Yemen can be traced back to “IntelCenter,” a mysterious private contractor with a dubious reputation [.pdf] (see frames 89-100) that does business with the intelligence community.”
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/12/27/the-lap-bomber-mystery/
3. “Instant Karma: New US War Target Gets Its Own Terror Icon
Wow, that didn’t take long at all. Scant days after the American war machine took the cloaking device off its direct military involvement in Yemen, we have an alleged attempted terrorist attack by an alleged attempted terrorist who, just scant hours after his capture, has allegedly confessed to getting his alleged attempted terrorist material from … wait for it … Yemen!
Yemen-trained terrorists on the loose in American airplanes! At Christmas! Great googily moogily! It’s a good thing our boys are on the case over there right now, pounding the holy hell outta some of them Al Qaeder ragheads! And to think, a few pipsqueaky fifth columnists had been starting to wonder why we were killing dozens of innocent civilians on behalf of an authoritarian regime embroiled in a three-way civil war on the other side of the world.
Well, now they have their answer, by God! Alleged attempted terrorists allegedly trained in Yemen! What else do you need — a freaking warrant or something? We would obviously be justified in nuking that desert hell-hole and everybody in it! Just think of it — some guy with some kind of something on an airplane, right there in the Heartland! You gonna stand for that? Exterminate the brutes!
…
As we noted here the other day, there’s no time for depth, context, history — or even facts — when the “frame” is screaming “Terror!”
In any case, whatever facts about the case — or rather, shards and splinters of filtered information — that are allowed to emerge from the depths of the security apparat, you can be absolutely sure that, as always, the “facts will be fixed around the policy.”
And what is that policy? Why, endless war, of course! The American war machine (which now dominates most of “civilian” society as well) is like a shark: it must keep moving, and feeding, or die. “Terror, Bomb, Yemen!”
4. There’s a real surprise:
“Lieberman: The United States Must Pre-Emptively Act In Yemen
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, (I-Conn) a renowned hawk and one of the foremost champions of the invasion of Iraq, warned on Sunday that the United States faced “danger” unless it pre-emptively acts to curb the rise of terrorism in Yemen.
“Somebody in our government said to me in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, Iraq was yesterday’s war. Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war,” Lieberman said, during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday”. “That’s the danger we face.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/27/lieberman-the-united-stat_n_404241.html
5. “Iran’s Growing Revolution vs. the Democrat’s Intervention
Regardless of the many media-invented lies surrounding the situation in Iran, the real cause for intervention would be the same as Iraq: oil and corporate profits in general.
Like Iraq, Iran has lots of oil. Also like Iraq, Iran has a large state sector that could be privatized as gifts for U.S. corporations. Like Iraq, Iran is not a puppet of the United States, one of the few countries in the oil-rich Middle East hanging on to their independence.
This Iranian revolution, if successful, has profound implications for the Middle East and beyond. The last Iranian revolution, in 1979, shook off the U.S.-installed puppet dictator and made Iran an independent country. Unfortunately, the aspirations of the people were choked off by the Ayatollahs, who stopped the revolutionary movement in its tracks by murdering progressives by the thousands.
…
The popular revolution in Iran is likely to come into conflict with not only Mullahs, but in addition, powerful corporations. The people will not be satisfied submitting to either, making this revolution inherently more radical than the “pro-democracy” label given by the U.S. government. If Iran were to complete a revolution that made its goal to spend its oil wealth and other riches on the people, it would send an example that would rock the Middle East. Any U.S. or Israeli intervention would be useless, which is precisely why they may try to abort the baby before it is born. “
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16673
6. “Compulsory Private Health Insurance: Just Another Bailout of the Financial Sector?
“[T] here is a huge untapped market of some 50 million people who are not paying insurance premiums—and the number grows every year because employers drop coverage and people can’t afford premiums. Solution? Health insurance ‘reform’ that requires everyone to turn over their pay to Wall Street. . . . This is just another bailout of the financial system, because the tens of trillions of dollars already committed are not nearly enough.”
…
Rather than focusing on making health care affordable, the bills focus on how to force people either to buy health insurance if they don’t have it, or to pay more for it if they do. If you don’t have insurance and don’t purchase it, you will be subject to a hefty fine. And if you do purchase it, premiums, co-pays, co-insurance payments and deductibles are liable to keep health care cripplingly expensive. Most of the people who don’t have health care can’t afford to pay the deductibles, so they will never use the plans they are forced to buy.
To subsidize those who can’t pay, the Senate bill would make families earning two to four times the poverty level who don’t have employer-sponsored insurance surrender 8% to 12% of their income to insurance payments, or pay a fine. In another effort to make the insurance payments “affordable,” the Senate bill calls for the lowest cost plan to cover only sixty percent of health care costs.
“In other words,” writes Dr. Andrew Coates in a November 23 article, “a guarantee of insurance industry dominance and the continued privatization of health care in every arena.”
Compulsory health insurance is like compulsory selective military service (the draft), except that all of our numbers have come up. The argument has been made that auto insurance is compulsory, so why not health insurance? But the obvious response is that you can choose to drive a car. The only way to escape the vehicle we call a body is to give up the ghost.”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16674
